The disclosures herein relate generally to information handling systems and more particularly to multiple information handling systems coupled to a common remote terminal.
As the value and use of information continue to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
In the enterprise environment as well as other environments, multiple information handling systems are frequently connected to a common remote terminal or console, such as a VT100 or ANSI “dumb terminal”. In the modern computer server environment, it is typical for multiple servers such as so-called “blade servers” or simply “blades” to be housed in a common rack. Generally, each blade server in the rack is not equipped with its own unique keyboard, mouse and display. Rather, the blade servers are typically connected via their serial ports to a concentrator switch which is coupled to a common remote terminal. The concentrator switch allows the multiple blade servers to share the same remote terminal. Upon command from the remote terminal, the concentrator switch will switch from blade server to blade server, thus enabling the remote terminal to send information to, and receive information from, any particular blade server that a remote terminal administrator desires.
Unfortunately in the above described arrangement, a problem arises when a remote administrator switches between the blades from his or her remote terminal console. Typically, text updates are sent to the remote terminal's display screen when screen attributes change. In other words, the whole screen contents are not updated when the concentrator switch changes from one blade to another blade. Rather, just a portion of the text on the screen is changed, namely the portion corresponding to the newly connected blade's current update. Thus, when switching from blade to blade, the remote terminal's display screen becomes quickly garbled. This occurs because some contents from the prior connected blade undesirably remain on the screen after the remote terminal has switched from that blade to another blade.
Therefore, what is needed is blade server system which enables the remote terminal to switch from blade to blade without the terminal's display screen being contaminated by text remaining from a prior connected blade.